Aguilas Range

by Nate

When I was thirteen and still lived in the desert I saw a ghost woman at the top of a dry waterfall in the foothills. I was resting on a rock when she crawled out of the scrub-oak bushes on her hands and knees not ten feet away from me. She hurriedly stood up and her plaid dress was shredded and dotted with cactus spines. I knew she was dead because her clogs didn’t make any sound in the gravel as she stepped over to me and her eyes were white and porous like dried coral. She stared down at me silently but I said “there are better violets down the trail by the watering hole; it’s dug out of the dirt; coyote and black bear tracks. The best flowers are there” and I pointed to the west with my whole arm.